Florida Archaeology

Аннотация. Было проведено актуальное исследование, решившее один из вопросов  в современной науке и образовании. Необходимость исследования была вызвана отсутствием в учебниках Всеобщей Истории в странах СНГ информации о многочисленных народах, населяющих Флориду в «доиспанский» (XVI век) и «досеминолький» (XVIII) периоды. В результате исследований были разработаны карты, показывающие приблизительное расселение индейских племен в XVI веке в пределах территории нынешнего штата Флорида, который был частью огромной территории Испанской Флориды, которая существовала «де-юре» с 1513 года, а фактически не была освоена. В течение XVIII веке почти все народы, жившие во Флориде исчезли большей частью в результате индейских и европейских войн, болезней и других факторов. Однако последние из них исчезли после тотального уничтожения их вторгшимися племенами Криков, Семинолов, Ямаси и других индейских племен, которые в дальнейшем расселились по обезлюдившим  территориям Флориды.

This study describes the archaeological investigations that have taken place at the wreck site of the English slave ship Henrietta Marie (1700) since its location in 1972. Information is provided on the methodology utilized during on-site archaeological data recovery, and the artifacts retrieved from the wreck site are described in detail. An account of complimentary documentary research on this wrecked slaver is also presented. Contemporary historical data gleaned from shipping lists, slaver’s logs, seamen’s wills and other sources are utilized to place Henrietta Marie within her proper context as a vehicle involved in the notorious transatlantic slave trade.

Extensive shovel probing and high resolution block excavations based on the quantified results of the probes have revealed a midden with a possibly contiguous seasonal village or hamlet of probable Woodland ascription. The site labeled Sexton (8IR01822) is situated on a slightly elevated limestone hammock in Indian River County, Florida, and was episodically occupied/visited into the Historic period. The results of the field work are summarized and compared to other previously studied localities in central Florida.

Although a lot of undocumented archaeology has been undertaken in the Big Bend area in the past, the most significant early work (late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries) was carried out by three men: Clarence B. Moore, Elias H. Sellards, and J. Clarence Simpson. These researchers brought some professionalism to the work, and made efforts to disseminate the results of their excavations and other studies. They also ensured that archaeological collections were deposited in museum collections where they would be curated and available for study by other researchers. None of them had professional training in archaeology, but they nevertheless made lasting contributions to our knowledge of the region.

When the pirate-slaver Guerrero wrecked and its pursuer, the British Royal Navy schooner Nimble, grounded on the Florida Reef in 1827, a considerable amount of historical information was generated about the events. A close look at the various documents that relate to this tragedy provides the information necessary to begin to understand where the events took place and what might be found there.

In 2009, St. Augustine’s City Archaeologist investigated property at 325 St. George Street. Analysis of the artifactual assemblage recovered and examination of documentary evidence, suggests the presence of Canary Islanders in St. Augustine during the mid-eighteenth century. Intended to serve as agricultural laborers in the City—a void created by the diminishing native population—Canary Islanders’ presence fulfilled social and economic needs created by the process of Spanish colonialism. The archaeological record, historic documentation, in addition to previous research establish the Canary Islander presence in St. Augustine and exhibit this process as an extension of Spanish colonialism practices.

This paper describes nine Spanish-made gunflints from a site on the central west coast of Florida, USA.  Florida famously was explored and colonized by Spain in the early sixteenth century and, except for a 20-year period from 1763 to 1783 when it was under British rule, continued to be a Spanish colony until 1821.  Nonetheless, Spanish-made gunflints are extremely rare.  Of the 12 known examples (including the nine reported here), all are associated with late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century contexts, and 10 are from Spanish fishing ranchos.  Because of their rarity and association with a specific time period and economic activity,  a technological description of the Maximo Beach artifacts, and a discussion of their historical context, seemed appropriate and of interest to gunflint researchers.

Report for Reflections of Manatee, Inc. on file with the Florida Master Site Files delineating historical archaeological and public outreach in the research on an early 19th-century maroon community on the Manatee River, Florida, known as Angola. The report focuses on 2004 to 2014 and makes the argument for material traces of Angola by the Manatee Mineral Spring. An update on the successful research is available as Uzi Baram 2021 "Recovering History by the Manatee Mineral Spring, Bradenton, Florida: Excavations and Laboratory Analysis" Report Prepared for Reflections of Manatee, Inc. - available at the Florida Master Site Files and https://ncf.academia.edu/UziBaram

With the COVID-19 pandemic, cannot deny academic year 2021-22 was challenging for public archaeology based at New College of Florida but persistence: great exhibits at three museums, new initiatives with 3D scanning and printing, student interest continuing with heritage and archaeology, we are set for a great year in 2022-23

The fifteen 1850s-era day beacon aids to navigation, known as the Totten Beacons, are a lesser-understood, underappreciated, and under-documented part of the UCH within the Florida Keys. Yet they an integral part of the maritime heritage of the Florida Keys and on a larger scale, that of the United States. Site documentation and archaeological characterization together with a viewshed analysis of their geographic locations in context with other ATONs yielded insight into the importance these beacons played in demarcating the geography and hazards of the Florida Keys Reef Tract and its impact on historical maritime navigation.

Over the past decade, archaeology has expanded its analytical toolkit by utilizing organic residue techniques. This methodology has greatly increased our ability to determine the nature and origins of organic remains and, in turn, bolster our understanding of prehistoric lifeways. As a subfield of biomolecular archaeology, organic residue analysis has advanced considerably, with improvements in spectroscopic and chromatographic instrumentation, along with associated methods of sample preparation. New developments in metabolomics complement these advances and increase the power of analysis and identification of organic compounds preserved due to past human activities. We at the Departments of Anthropology and Geological Sciences as well as Florida Museum of Natural History are seeking to further expand the efficacy of organic residue analyses by combining metabolomic approaches available at the Southeast Center for Integrated Metabolomics with other techniques of residue analysis of organic extracts derived from archaeological materials conventionally being done at the University of Florida. Hence, this poster presents the results of the metabolomic analysis using ultra-high pressure liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry of organic residues on archaeological pottery from four different geographic areas, namely, Central America, South America, Southeastern United States, and Southeast Asia.  These results demonstrate how metabolomics can be useful for the chemical analysis of organic residues on archaeological materials.

The research presented in this paper began with the popular romantic notion that the discovery of mainland North America by Ponce de Leon in 1519 was inspired by a motivation to find “The Fountain of Youth”.  Awareness of the unusual hydrological science of Florida, and the particularly grand limestone spring formations, then led to the proposition that there was an interchange of myth and knowledge of these formations from the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean to the early explorers.

This report presents the results of an archaeological survey and evaluative testing of the Bayshore Homes archaeological site in Pinellas County, Florida.  The Bayshore Homes site proper is recorded in the Florida Master Site File as 8PI41 and consists of two burial mounds, a flat-topped platform mound, and a large shoreline midden.  Recent investigations, however, have expanded the site complex to include the adjacent midden at Abercrombie Park (8PI58) and the Kuttler Mound (8PI10650), a large shell mound situated between Abercrombie Park and the Bayshore Homes midden.  the report summarizes previous excavations at the site by William Sears and presents new data on settlement layout, site formation, chronometric dating, subsistence, ceramics, and lithic, shell, and bone artifacts.

Previous researchers have extended the range of
the American bison (Bison bison) to include the state of
Georgia, yet there have not been any verifiable osteological
remains of bison found at archaeological sites in the state.
A critical examination of the data used to establish this
range demonstrates that much of it is based on unsubstantiated historical accounts, toponyms that were believed to be evidence of the historical occurrence of bison, and unverifiable nineteenth-century accounts of osteological evidence. Credible accounts indicate that the Spanish did not find any evidence of bison in Georgia in the sixteenth century,
but by the early eighteenth century bison had migrated into
an area of South Carolina adjacent to the upper Savannah
River and into the lower Chattahoochee River basin.
Eighteenth-century British settlers also reported buffalo in
the Coastal Plain, but evidence suggests they may have mistaken feral Spanish cattle for bison. This assessment of the
evidence indicates that bison did not range into Georgia
until the late seventeenth century, possibly due to reduced
predation by hunters after the demographic collapse of Mississippian societies. They were therefore only present in the
upper Savannah River and lower Chattahoochee River basins
for a brief period of time.

In the summer of 1991, St. Johns Expeditions, a Florida-based marine salvage company, discovered a shipwreck buried behind a shallow reef along the western edge of the Little Bahama Bank. The group contacted archaeologists to ascertain the significance of the discovery, and it was soon determined to be a Spanish ship dating to the 1500’s. The investigation of the shipwreck was entrusted to the author, working for the Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Society (MFMHS), a not-for-profit research center based in Key West, Florida. Between 1992 and 1999, the MFMHS conducted six excavations to examine and document the shipwreck. Careful analysis of the shipwreck shows that the sizeable vessel sailed between 1555 and 1575 and had touched at Tierra Firme (Colombia and Panama) before sinking during a return voyage to Spain.
    By comparing the archaeological evidence to the historical record, it becomes clear that the St. Johns shipwreck is the Santa Clara, a 300-ton Carrera de Indias galleon owned by the famed Spanish mariner Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. While returning to Spain in October of 1564, the ship grounded on a reef in the western Bahamas and could not be freed. Its cargo of silver and the people on board were safely removed to an accompanying vessel, and the Santa Clara was abandoned. With the identity and specific circumstances of the shipwreck known, it serves as an important touchstone in the understanding of the early Spanish colonial system.

The ten thousand Islands region of southwest Florida contains extensive prehistoric shell midden sites called shell works that comprise some of the largest and most complicated prehistoric shell constructions in the world. these terraformed landscapes reflect a unique prehistoric tradition of shell-built architecture and large-scale landscape construction. traditionally, shell work sites were considered little more than large midden accumulations formed through the mundane disposal of daily shellfish meals. over the last decade an ambitious program to survey, map and test multiple shell work complexes challenges this assumption. Comparison of shell work forms throughout the region demonstrates significant spatial, temporal and morphological relationships including several recurring site forms, suggesting settlements were connected communities, sharing similar social, political and ideological characteristics that became manifested within these socially constructed shellscapes over time.

An examination of the people onboard the 1622 galleons Nuestra Señora de Atocha and Santa Margarita and the disaster that befell them. In September of 1622, the Spanish Tierra Firme fleet was struck by a hurricane one day after it had left Havana, Cuba. The twenty-eight ships were battered by the storm, and seven of them were sunk near the Florida Keys. The disaster was a tremendous loss for Spain, with hundreds of people killed and valuable cargoes dashed to the bottom of the sea. This study is centered on an account of the tragedy that was written in Havana in November of 1622, which details the disaster and the people on the galleons Nuestra Señora de Atocha and Santa Margarita. This relation is supplemented by other, more detailed lists of people found in the Archives of the Indies in Seville. Further investigations into the individual life-histories of those on the two doomed galleons give a fuller understanding of who these people were, why they were sailing, and how their presence is sometimes recognized in the archaeological record.

Claims concerning the location of the town of Potano, named in accounts of the 1539 de Soto entrada and the location of the later 1608 mission of San Buenaventura de Potano, have recently been made for two sites: the Richardson/UF Village site, 8AL100, and the purported White Ranch site.  Recent discoveries at the Richardson/UF Village site will be discussed and their implications for the identity of the site presented.

A summary and critique of the Interstate 75 Highway Archaeological Project, one of the largest long-term archaeological projects in Florida's history.  Conducted between 1978 and 1985 by the Florida Division of Archives, History, and Records Management's Bureau of Historic Sites and Properties,  the I-75 Project consisted of an archaeological survey of the proposed interstate bypass around Tampa, Florida, Phase II test excavations at 13 selected sites discovered during the survey, and Phase III excavations at four sites determined to be eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.  Most of the sites were lithic scatters with little or no visible strata.  Archaeological components dated from the Paleoindian through Woodland periods.  Despite its historic import, no detailed synthesis of the excavation results was ever produced.  Thus a major justification for the monograph was to compile, in one document, a detailed summary of the archaeological work performed at all 13 sites and to make this summary widely available to interested individuals.  A second goal was to critically evaluate the project’s results.  Because the work is now over 20 years old, it was important to consider the historical context within which the project existed in order to fairly assess its successes and failures.  Thus this project is part history, part synthesis, and part critical review.

This report presents the results of Phase III excavation and data recovery at 8LA243, also known as the Montverde site, located in the town of Montverde in Lake County, Florida.  The site was a relatively permanent habitation site that occupied primarily during the Terminal Late Archaic and Early St. Johns I periods, or
between about 3650 to 2320 calibrated years B.P. (cal 1700-370 B.C.).  In addition, one radiocarbon date from soot on a St. Johns Check Stamped pottery sherd returned a calibrated age of 760-660 B.P., or A.D. 1180-1290. This suggests that the site was reoccupied during the late St. Johns II period. Since St. Johns Check Stamped, the primary marker for St. Johns II, is not well represented at Montverde, it appears that this late occupation was not extensive.  The faunal remains are dominated by freshwater aquatic species, specifically a variety of turtles and fish as well as alligator.  Freshwater mussels are present but were apparently a minor contributor to the diet. Deer was the primary mammal that was hunted and consumed. Other animals that contributed to the diet  are rabbit, raccoon, opossum, turkey, salamander, snake, and gopher tortoise. Botanical remains include nutshells of oak and hickory and seeds of the bottle gourd, saw palmetto,
wild grape, wax myrtle, bedstraw, and wild grasses (Poaceae family). The presence of bottle gourd suggests the possibility of limited horticulture. Fire woods included pine, live oak, red oak, hickory, and walnut.  Based on the seasonal availability of the various nuts and seeds recovered from the features, it appears that the site was occupied during the late summer through winter months.

Although bioturbation and other site disturbances made the separation of the site’s various temporal components impossible,  pit features, postholes, and postmolds in submidden contexts did enable some reconstruction of settlement structure for the site’s earliest intensive occupation. At least one fairly large structure, and possibly two others, was identified. Settlement layout appears to have been relatively informal with structures probably aligned along the top of the ridge overlooking Lake Apopka.

From 1972 to 2001, extensive archaeological research was performed at the shipwreck of the Henrietta Marie, a London-based slave ship sunk in 1700 at remote New Ground Reef in the western Florida Keys. Between 2001 and 2003, to build upon the earlier investigations, the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum and the RPM Nautical Foundation conducted magnetometer surveys across New Ground with the hope of locating historic shipwrecks, but with a particular focus on finding missing portions of the Henrietta Marie. Multiple magnetic anomalies were detected in these surveys, and many appeared to relate to the wrecked slaver. When a sampling of buried anomalies was tested by excavation, all that was revealed was evidence of fire within a submerged paleo-landscape. This paper details the research and works toward understanding the unusual discoveries.

Shell Mound Park or simply Mound Park, has been the topic of much speculation regarding its origin.  Trumpeted as a local landmark and a focal point for tourism, the subject of numerous postcards and photographs, and eventually the site of a modern hospital, Shell Mound Park and its history serve as an instructive case study of how a city and its residents struggled with the competing interests of history, preservation, and development, as well as reflecting an era's lack of cultural sensitivity.

The story of the long-running Key West turtling industry is examined through historical research, the archaeological excavation of the Key West Turtle Kraals, and oral history. The turtling business helped to shape the island’s economy and development but at an unsustainable cost to the region’s sea turtles, especially the Green turtle (Chelonia mydas). The body of this paper, originally written in 2009, serves as the basis of the exhibit “The Rise and Fall of the Key West Turtle Fishing Industry” at the Key West Turtle Museum, Key West, Florida.

The results of archaeological investigations in 2012 at the Hutto/Martin site, 8MR3447, indicate the site represents Mission Santa Lucia de Acuera.  The results also suggest the Hutto/Martin site likely represents the site of the town of Acuera mentioned in accounts of the Hernando de Soto entrada.

Though human populations living along northwest Florida’s Gulf of Mexico coast have long utilized locally abundant marine resources, the formation of a red snapper fishing industry in Pensacola, Florida, brought marine resource exploitation in the region to an unprecedented level in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Along with other industries, commercial red snapper fishing in Pensacola underwent significant growth during this period and helped shape the port city’s new importance as a cosmopolitan, southern economic center. Utilizing a historical ecological approach, this thesis provides a multidisciplinary analysis of commercial fishing culture, commercial fishing vessels, and the Gulf of Mexico red snapper fishery to explore the dynamic relationship the industry held with the local environment. Additionally, archaeological and historical evidence provides the basis for a model describing the structural and material characteristics of potential Pensacola commercial red snapper fishing shipwrecks in the region.

Antiquarians of the nineteenth century referred to the largest monumental constructions in eastern North America as
pyramids, but this usage faded among archaeologists by the mid-twentieth century. Pauketat (2007) has reintroduced the
term pyramid to describe the larger, Mississippian-period (A.D. 1050 to 1550) mounds of the interior of the continent, recognizing
recent studies that demonstrate the complexity of their construction. Such recognition is lacking for earlier mounds
and for those constructed of shell. We describe the recent identification of stepped pyramids of shell from the Roberts Island
Complex, located on the central Gulf Coast of Florida and dating to the terminal Late Woodland period, A.D. 800 to 1050,
thus recognizing the sophistication of monument construction in an earlier time frame, using a different construction
material, and taking an alternative form.